Looking for some tips and advice in order to improve the fantasy baseball league I run. Right now we have 12 guys that pay $50/each and we split the money for top 3.

Was thinking of upping the ante to $100/person and getting a trophy that is updated yearly with the winner's team name etc and looking for other good ideas to make it more interesting and a better overall experience. Right now, we do get together for the draft at someone's house and it is a blast.

Any ideas would be appreciated. It can be anything from rules to strategy (limiting roster moves etc) to payouts.

Make the 12th place team responsible for the engraving each year..they dont have to pay for it per se (can come out of total league dues) but an extra punishment

Have some deincentive spots to motivate those teams in the bottom (maybe last 2 or 3 teams have to kick in some cash next year)

Could have sidepools by category 10 bucks for best in HR, RBI, etc

Sidepools for most improved month to month

Usually if you have some extra prizes/incentives keeps all the teams motivated

In the league i run, I pay out top 5 for a 14 teamer (but really 4 and 5 are not great prizes just "something") bottom 3 have to kick in more money and teams 6 through 11 go in for a lottery to get that kick in money. Team 6 gets the most ping pong balls team 11 the least. Makes every spot in the standings count for something.

But if youre saying its a blast already.."if it aint broke, dont fix it"

"I'm the man with the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than F***. So that's why I'm better than anyone in the world." - Kenny Powers

Do you use two divisions? If not, try making it two divisions and have a payout for each divisional winner. We have a $50 buy-in for each team and the winner of each division wins $50. Win your league, and you get your buy-in back and you still have a shot at a bigger pay day if you win the whole league or come in second, depending on the structure of your payouts.

I don't think money and league fun are related at all. The two leagues I run have been around almost 20 years. The majority of the same guys for over ten years. We each only put $20 in the prize pool for each league plus the stat fee. We have a good time and the same guys come back each year. Getting the right people to play is very key. As far as our rules, we play a straight Roto 5 X 5. 11 Owner NL only. We have no reserve list, only the 23 active players. I think this is key because if you draft all the players, there are no good ones to improve your team during the season and owners drop out. One thing that we do that I don't think many others do is we are allowed only 12 player moves a year (not counting DL's). On each player move we bid on them. This makes it alot of fun and puts strategy in the game. We also have an in-season salary cap of $290. This stops a team from getting too many lopsided trades. Just a few ideas for you.